All you need to know about curlew

This week we're focusing on the plight of the curlew - a bird that would be at the top of many lists to be the UK's totemic bird - not just because our coasts and estuaries host internationally important numbers of them in the winter, not only because our hills and moors (and some lowland areas too) are places that are globally significant breeding areas for curlew but as much because their wild presence and evocative calls are part of the soul of our countryside. They have woven their existence into our consciousness, our art and culture and yet they are in trouble. 

Conservation Scientist Pip Gullett works on the RSPB’s UK-wide Curlew Trail Management Project. Here, she gives a beginners guide this fascinating bird. 

Curloooo! Whaup whaup! Curlooooo-aloo-aloo-aloo!

Close your eyes, open ears, and picture the scene. A misty moor on a damp spring morning, bright green mosses glinting with rain, and a dark figure rising up out of the brown carpet of heather... a figure on wings, with long grey legs, a brownish streaked body, and an absurdly long beak...

Curlew - Europe's largest wader. Photo credit Tim Melling

Yep, you got it – a curlew. The curlew is Europe’s largest wader. When they spread their wings they’re almost a metre wide, and if one was standing next to you its head would reach somewhere near your knee. Most record-breaking is their beak, which is around 15cm long – imagine carrying that around on your head. I always feel slightly sorry for curlews; that long turned-down beak always gives them a depressed, grumpy look. That said, the curlew is one of my favourite birds, and hearing their wailing bubbling song return to the moors each spring is always a special treat.

Curlews normally live for around 20 years (one record-breaker made it to 31) and they generally don’t breed until they’re at least two years old. Males and females look similar, but if you get close enough you can normally tell a female by her even longer, more curved beak (and even more grumpy look) – and if you see a pair together you’ll notice that the female is quite a bit bigger too.

When curlews are on the ground, the only bird you could easily confuse them with is their close relative the whimbrel, and given that the only breeding hotspot for whimbrels in Britain is Shetland, that’s not likely to be a problem for most people! In flight, though, it’s not so simple. I’ve sometimes been tricked into thinking one was a gull (slow wingbeats, cartoon ‘M’-shaped look and generally greyish appearance) or even a bird of prey (when flying fast or low, with wings hunched forward). The key things to look for in flight are the beak (no gull or merlin ever had something quite that bonkers on their face) and the bright white patch on the curlew’s back, at the base of its tail.

Of course, if the curlew calls, you’ll have no excuse for misidentifying it at all, since it will be yelling its name right at you... “curlew” for its bubbling song and “whaup” (as it’s more commonly known in Scotland) for its wailing calls.

In the winter, curlews gather in large flocks (often several hundred) along muddy coasts and estuaries, as well as on rocky shores, coastal wetlands and inland lakeshores. This is when that long beak really comes into its own, allowing curlews to delve deep into the mud for worms and other tasty minibeasts. From around February onwards, curlew flocks start to break up and return inland to breed, looking for open damp areas like moorland, bog, damp grassland, farmland and heath. Curlews are very site-faithful, often spending the winter on the same stretch of coast each year and returning to the same field or patch of bog each spring. I love to imagine the map inside a curlew’s head – how do they remember where to go? They also tend to pair up with the same partner each year (convenience or true love?), so if you’re lucky enough to see curlews near your home, they’re probably the same birds coming back year on year – how romantic!

The amazing flight displays and bubbling “curloooo-aloo-aloo” calls you can witness in the spring are the male’s way of displaying his wares and claiming his territory. Once the males and females have paired up in early April or so, they build a very simple nest on the ground, scraping a slight hollow and lining it with grass, moss, or fragments of rush. The female lays three or four gorgeous olive-green eggs, each about the size of a goose egg. This is a big investment for her, so she normally only lays one egg every two days until the clutch is complete. Luckily, at this point the male steps in to help with incubation, with mum and dad often splitting the shifts between day and night so that both have time to feed. This goes on for around four stressful weeks, during which time the nest is very vulnerable to attack by roaming predators like foxes and crows.

Curlews are fierce parents, and if you stumble on one screeching its head off and dive-bombing a crow, it’s likely there’s a nest somewhere nearby. In a few lucky cases, the hard work pays off, and four weeks later the chicks hatch as little balls of brown and yellow fluff, with a stubby black beak and slender blue legs like a miniature ostrich. Within a few hours of hatching, the brave wee things will leave the nest, pecking tasty insects off the plants and following their parents around for safety. Often it looks more as if it’s the parents trying to follow them – like most young ones they seem to think they’re invincible, and their poor parents spend a lot of time standing guard and trying to keep their chicks safely hidden when danger appears.

For the next few weeks, the curlew family will move together over the fields and moors, foraging hungrily for insects and worms, until eventually, at around five weeks old, the chicks are big enough to fly. In June and July, look out for funny-looking curlews with a clumsy flight and a rather short beak (it takes a while longer to grow that masterpiece), and you might be lucky enough to spot a recent fledgling learning to fly. As soon as they can, it’s time to rejoin their neighbours and start heading in flocks back to the relative safety and luxury (all that mud to feed in!) of the coast. By late July, an eerie quiet descends over the fields and bogs once more.

With the trouble that curlews are now in, that eerie quiet has already fallen year-round in many places where breeding curlews were once common. When I think of this, and realise that our grandchildren might never hear the magic of that wailing bubbling song, I feel even luckier to be a part of a project that is trying to halt the decline and ensure the recovery of this gorgeous bird. Which reminds me – I’d better get onto the bog now and find some curlews. Just hearing them will be enough.